St. Clair County verdict will reduce time strip club bouncer spends in prison for murder
A St. Clair County jury has convicted a former St. Louis man of second-degree murder for shooting and killing a customer at a Brooklyn strip club nearly 10 years ago when he was a bouncer.
Maurice D. Shelton, 39, had asked for a new trial and got one this week. He and his attorney, Lloyd M. Cueto Jr., see the verdict as a victory. Shelton was facing a first-degree murder charge.
“It’s the difference between him dying in prison and possibly being out in six months,” said Cueto, a Belleville attorney who is serving as Shelton’s public defender.
Shelton has been incarcerated for nine and a half years. If he’s sentenced to the maximum 20 years for second-degree murder, he may be eligible for parole in six months with time served.
If the jury had convicted Shelton of first-degree murder, he could have faced a sentence of 45 to 85 years with firearm enhancements.
A sentencing hearing is set for June.
“This was not a situation where Maurice Shelton should have been convicted of first-degree murder or died in prison,” Cueto said. “He had been hired as a security guard, and he was dealing with a wild and unruly patron.”
Shelton testified at his three-day trial, which began Monday. He claimed that he shot the customer, Walter Taylor, 23, of East St. Louis, in self-defense.
The case had gone through some twists and turns.
Shelton pleaded guilty to first-degree murder due to mental illness in 2014 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to St. Clair County Circuit Court records. He later petitioned for post-conviction relief.
“Maurice felt that his prior attorney never met with him to explain the evidence against him or why they had charged him with first-degree murder,” Cueto said.
Former Circuit Court Judge Stephen McGlynn essentially agreed in 2020, setting aside Shelton’s conviction and granting him a new trial.
Shelton was a 29-year-old bouncer at the Pink Slip, a former strip club in Brooklyn, on Nov. 25, 2012, when he had an altercation with Taylor.
“Taylor was shot to death about 3:30 a.m. Sunday during a fight while in line outside the Pink Slip club at 114 South Fourth Street,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time.
According to Cueto’s defense:
- Taylor showed up at the club with a .20 blood-alcohol level and enough THC in his system to cause impairment.
- Shelton and Taylor argued over Taylor not wanting to pay the admission fee after already paying $20 to move to the front of the line.
- Taylor “sucker-punched” Shelton, fought with other bouncers and refused to leave the club.
- Taylor went out to his car, leading Shelton to believe that he was getting a gun and causing Shelton to fear for his life before he fired two shots at Taylor.
Brendan Kelly, who was St. Clair County state’s attorney at the time, didn’t view Shelton’s actions as self-defense and charged him with first-degree murder. His bail was set at $2 million.
Kelly took the opportunity to speak publicly about rising violence in Brooklyn.
”For the citizens there, it has become a path to misery and chaos on a nightly basis,” the BND quoted him as saying. “It’s time for what’s left of the village government to join local and federal leaders to consider some stronger creative action to address this unconscionable situation.”
